Revenue is building nicely at software firm GetBusy, which has seen over a million users flow through its online document sharing portal.

The Sawston firm released its interim results on Wednesday morning, which showed recurring revenue up 23 per cent on a consistent currency basis, to £4.49m.

Despite this, the company made a loss of £492,000, greater than the £395,000 figure it recorded in 2017. The firm incurred costs of £383,000 relating to its IPO in August last year.

Chief executive Daniel Rabie said he was particularly pleased with how the company is growing its UK customer base, with revenue up 16 per cent, compared to five per cent growth in the same period of 2017.

GetBusy CEO Daniel Rabie

He said: “We felt the UK underperformed last year, but we’ve changed the way we sell from an enterprise model to a transaction model, which means the sales team are following up good leads, and the impact of GDPR and regulatory changes also helped. We grew successfully in all our main markets and have achieved all our key metrics, so we’re pleased with the results.”

GetBusy’s software allows accountancy firms to share documents, such as tax returns, with their customers. The company, which operates worldwide, has picked up 1,100 new subscriptions over the last six months, taking its number of paying users up to 58,600. The combined number of people using the portal exceeded one million, the first time the company has hit that milestone.

“It speaks to greater adoption of our platform,” said Rabie. “Our new customers predominantly come from Microsoft Explorer folder structures. We have competitors in the United States who sell document management as part of wider practice management solutions for accountants, but we’re building a best-of-breed platform.”

Rabie added that the company has a new, more flexible system on the horizon to add value to its portfolio.

He said: “At the moment all our clients can do is share a document, so we’re building a product that enables customers to communicate around that and pull it into a workflow. That’s problem that’s not just for accounting but could be applicable to other industries, so we’re hopeful it could open up other markets.

Growing revenue further is the name of the game for GetBusy as it moves into the second half of the year, and Rabie said the company is looking to grow its team.

“Moving into H2 we will seek to capitalise on favourable market conditions and data points to increase our investment in customer acquisition in all territories,” he said.

“We are very proud of our roots, Sawston is our head office so we’ve got all the operational areas of our business there. We’re always looking for good local talent from the Cambridge area.”

The AIM-listed company's results did not impress the markets, with its share price dropping an initial six per cent on Wednesday morning, to 51.5p, before rallying slightly.